PID Engine RPM Controller

This means that the motor output is some form of an integral of it's input. For the stepper motor itself this is a bad analogy -- you've got two phases, four or six wires, you're microstepping, etc. An ideal DC motor is a better model -- you give it a voltage, it goes that speed, therefore its position is the integral of the drive.

If you have some other process that's driving the stepper, and you just tell it the number of steps, then your stepper-driver combo is "self integrating".

This should work depending on a number of things (if you want to be recognized as an engineer practice saying "it depends" in answer to every question).

I assume that what you send to the stepper is a desired number of steps? The difference between outputting an angle vs. an angle delta is that you have that extra integration. So you need to ask if it's unwanted. If the motor needs that derivative term to be stable it probably is, but if you want a type-II loop it probably isn't.

It would also be nice if you know what your throttle position is, for diagnostics if nothing else.

Probably not.

I'm not familiar with the term -- it sounds specific to one type of actuator.

Yes, you'll have integrator windup in your PID. My article

touches on integrator windup and gives the most popular method of avoiding it, but doesn't go in depth. I suspect you'll find it useful anyway.

Additional Comments:

• Stepper motors -- blech.

• A throttle position feedback would be a good idea.

• You _really_ want some safety built-in, at least a solenoid that kicks the throttle to idle if your power cuts out, better yet a back-up rev limiter (you can get these on your ignition if it's not already there).

Hi Paul,

Why would a stepper be self integrating in this application? A stepper is an almost instant and pretty digital control when it comes to engines. A step and thus throttle change of 1.8 degrees happens in microseconds whereas the reaction of the engine takes a whole lot longer because of the flywheel and other delay causing elements. So the natural lowpass filter in the actuator section is going to be the engine. Well, maybe unless it was a souped up version from a Ferrari Testarossa :-).

One method to arrive at customary loop responses is to look at a good governor solution. Most stationary engines have governors, for example generators where the output voltage isn't supposed to stray more than 5% or so from spec. This doesn't mean they are all good though. I have just used a wood splitter that had a terrible governor which even caused the engine to bang once in a while.

Regards, Joerg

Okay.

Yes, which could cause problems- if it can't be tuned properly at both extremes of load you'll likely have to add throttle position feedback or load feedforward to deal with the nonlinearity.

Your controller inputs are SP and PV, your output is change in "throttle angle" (or whatever actually results from the stepper motor steps) per Ts.

You don't really have a PID controller if the output is slew-rate limited, but it doesn't sound like this will happen much in normal operation.

I don't think it does. I've used things like this in controls such as heat/cool controls on extruders where some zones are run close to adiabatic (the heat from plasticizing is close to the heat loss, so you may need heating or cooling), but your setup sounds very symmetrical and I don't see much reason for that kind of thing unless you're trying to deal with problems (eg. "hunting") caused by mechanical backlash in the throttle linkage (and the best way to deal with that is to eliminate it).

Probably not except at startup or sudden load increases you might get overshoot/undershoot on the RPM (but 0.2s is not really very long compared to the time constant of the plant, which is more important than the sample time). You'll probably have trouble calculating the

2nd derivative of the RPM, BTW, without some filtering. You might try and see if just a PI controller will work well enough. Windup should not be a problem because you are using a velocity controller.

Best regards, Spehro Pefhany

Tim Wescott wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@corp.supernews.com:

Yes, correct.

Yes, I believe it does require the derivative term to maintain stability.

When you say "extra integration", do you mean the integration in the PID loop plus the integration in the motor?

I'm looking at a throttle position sensor to confirm this. Although I can know throttle position indirection by keeping track of all the deltas. Assuming the motor doesn't mis steps, then it would always be correct (and he hasn't missed any steps that I know of).

Its where the output is either UP/DOWN/STOP for example, where UP might drive a fixed speed motor opening a valve.

Do you mean that when the position output exceeds the number of steps that can be completed within one sample period is considered windup? In this case, the actuator is not really saturated on an absolute basis, only per sample period.

Yes, I have overspeed/underspeed shut down which cuts the fuel.

Thanks,

paul

Spehro Pefhany wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:

Yeah, I must implement some form of gain scheduling, or perhaps even a characterizer to linearize the system.

Ts = Sample Period?

When you say "or whatever actually results from the stepper motor steps", do you mean the case where the motor has reached its maximum number of steps per sample period?

That's what I'm wondering, should my output be absolute throttle angle, or should it be *change* in throttle angle?

Not sure I follow what you're saying. Are you saying that even though the motor is bandwidth limited, it likely doesn't matter compared to the response time of the engine?

I could probably speed up the stepper motor so that it always completes the change in throttle within one PID period.

I'm pretty sure I need derivative, it requires it for stability from my experiments.

You mentioned 2nd derivative, I assume you mean that first derivative is that of the normal PID term, and the 2nd is because it is a velocity algorithm?

Can I implement a software low pass filter to supress high frequency noise?

Thanks,

Paul

"David Powell" wrote in news:vZ4zc.2155$ snipped-for-privacy@news.indigo.ie:

Got it! Thanks.

Is this true for both the positional and velocity algorithms?

Do you mean the response time of the engine speed to changes in throttle? I don't really know, but is relatively slow in microcontroller terms - probably well over a second at least.

Yes, as best I can.

Instantly, upon application of higher electrical current (we are driving a generator).

Tried that, but it seems to want D for stability.

Thanks!

Paul

I've implemented valve motor control in a PID temperature controller, which would seem similar. I'm not sure I understand why you need to worry about throttle angle - it's just the output actuator within a closed loop. If you're measuring engine RPM, surely the throttle angle must do whatever it takes to maintain the measured variable (RPM)? What am I missing?

Re delays in your actuator - most real-world processes are laggy, so I shouldn't worry too much unless your I term is inappropriately short.

Steve

Yes.

I mean that stepper motor steps could be nonlinear wrt throttle angle. For example, if you have a spring return and a linkage so that it shuts off if the stepper motor loses power..

The output of a velocity controller is the rate of change of the controller output, so, given fixed sample time, you can think of it as (proportional to) steps (maybe fractional, maybe + or -) per second and also per sample time.

That's my guess.

Think of the bandwidth of the controlled system (throttle to loaded engine shaft) first, and use a sample time that is appropriate to that (not too fast, not too slow).

Correct- to get the I in PID you need the second derivative of the error term with the velocity algorithm.

Certainly, given the usual caveats of digital filtering.

Best regards, Spehro Pefhany

Ditto, that. I started a project to control huge steam and gas valves using pneumatics. The pneumatic cylinder was controlled by a pneumatic stepper valve. There were problems with the stepper valve shifting to a safe position when power was lost. Also, there were problems getting the initial position set properly. I wouldn't trust steppers valves for anything important.

I bowed out. We did have position feedback for the pneumatic cylinder that was controlling the flow control spool, but when stuff happened, the only sure way I had to make sure the main flow control properly shut or open was to just give the stepper motor on the pneumatic valve a bunch of steps in one direction or the other depending on whether the valve was to fail shut or closed. Well what happens if our controller loses power? We can't make the valve fail in either direction because without power we cannot step the stepper motor. The pneumatic stepper valve would also fail to a neutral postion which would let the main flow control valve move at all.

Peter Nachtwey

You do. Your system has two lags at least. The valve and the motor. This requires a PID for best response.

Shame on those that suggest that just a PI would do.

A second deriviative should be considered if there are many lags.

Yes. The corner frequency should be much higher than the plant frequency so the filter has little affect on the response. I like to use the geometric mean between the same frequency and the plant frequency. I have used up to a four pole Butterworth filter.

One more suggest. As Tim suggested, the integrator WILL wind up. To avoid this, do NOT ramp the set point up faster than what the stepper can respond. In fact, you may want to ramp the RPM as slow as possible. This way the the rate limited stepper will not be a factor.

Peter Nachtwey

I'm using a spring to close the throttle all the way upon loss of power

- its not a big issue in this application. Its certainly better than the conventional rotory actuator which is full of hysteresis and non- linearity.

Thanks, Paul

"Peter Nachtwey" wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@comcast.com:

I've heard people say that with a velocity (incremental) algorithm integral wind up is not a big problem as it is inherently limiting. Is this true?

Paul

"Peter Nachtwey" wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@comcast.com:

Well, the extra integration of the stepper-as-integrator.

"Assuming". Heh heh. This is why I don't like steppers...

Given that you know the throttle position you may want to take your PID output as a position command, then have a second loop that servos the throttle to that position.

Read the article.

Windup is what happens when _any_ output is saturated and your integrator keeps building up -- the consequence being that when you come out of saturation your integrator will be at a very wrong state. In a loop with enough lag this can induce large-scale, slow oscillations whose effects can range from embarrassment to actuator overheating to mechanical failure.

Spehro, surely you meant 1st derivative?

Even the simple derivative of the engine RPM will be noise, you'll want to use a "derivative" with a gain that levels off at some frequency:

(1-d) (z-1) H_d(z) = ----------- z-d

This has the effect of cascading a derivative and a low-pass, with a gain that levels off above the indicated pole, but with the correct derivative action below that.

I think he did mean 2nd derivative because with a velocity algorithm we are essentially taking the derivative of the positional PID form, which results in a second derivative term.

Paul

It really is the second derivative, since the output is effectively fed into an integrator (the stepper, a 1/s thingie)..

One (the simplest, I think) unfiltered difference equation form for the 2nd derivative is:

is: e - 2* e + e n n-1 n-2

There are better methods..

Best regards, Spehro Pefhany

It won't likely be possible to tune it for this ideal "best response" (however that is defined) due to the large amount of nonlinearity. It will have to be detuned deliberately to keep it stable enough everywhere.

Looks to me like the two lags are about an order of magnitude different, especially for small signal response.. I also know for a fact that PI works rather well in very similar applications in production volume.

Best regards, Spehro Pefhany

That's transient response to a load change, not "stability" (as in "not oscillating").

;-)

Best regards, Spehro Pefhany

My memory finally kicked in. The way we did this was that the main PID loop provided an output actuator value (0-100%). We then used another (simpler, faster) loop to control the actuator, with the valve position as the measured variable and the motor as the actuator, and the output actuator value as the setpoint.

With that proviso, my earlier comment/question still applies.

Steve